Rhyming Slang for The Flying Squad, The Sweeney (Todd) is at least the third movie remake of the classic 70s and 80s British TV series of the same name.
Starring the perennial hard-case Ray Winstone as the gravelly voiced Inspector Jack Reagen - a role performed by the comparatively erudite John Thaw (who more recently played the even more polished Inspector Morse) - this was a particularly brutish portrayal of London's Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police.
With the team pursuing an equally brutish gang of diamond thieves, and Reagan having an affair with the wife of one of his superiors, the action is intense and nonstop. The old style squad features Ben Drew - UK rapper Plan B (according to Mrs Page) - as Reagan's second-in-command George Carter.
It's all good, old-fashioned police work that reminds the viewer of all the stuff that happens in our city's underbellies that we'd rather not know too much about.
I'm not sure if it's a prerequisite that all members of the real-life Sweeney are hard-boiled cockneys, but I hope I never learn first-hand the phrase "Oi, on your face you ****ing slag, now!"
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